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RE: Another very fine tribute to Patricia Clark: msg#00076
culture.autism
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Subject: |
RE: Another very fine tribute to Patricia Clark |
Okay, Tom ... please be sure to give credit to Kathleen
Seidel and her neurodiversity.com. Sorry Kathleen ... I forgot to put
your name on the bottom :o/ mea
culpa.
~*~ Tink
Tink and list,
Thank you Tink for this
collection of quotes from Patty Clark. I'm
forwarding this to the
Psych-DD list where she did a great deal of
work.
Tom
---
Tink <tink_lecuyer@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[from Sunday ~
7-17-05]
http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/6/farewell-friend--patricia-e-clark
-1944-2005
Patricia
E. Clark died this morning of complications from a stroke.
She was
Recording Secretary for the Autism Society of America?Georgia
Chapter, and
a contributor to the book, Women from Another Planet, an
anthology of
writings by women on the autistic spectrum.
A memorial page for Patty
is now evolving at
http://home.mindspring.com/~jradin/patty/home.html.
I
will miss her, and I will miss her insights. Here are some of
those
insights, culled from newsgroup posts she made over the past
few
months:
On autistic children?s potential and how we affect
it:
?I think it?s important to have children with ?differences?
hear
themselves
referred to in ?normal? ways and not always in the third
person. Once
you
start stepping out of this ?all kids learn as they grow
up? scenario
verbally, the child is learning that he IS a handicap or that
he can?t
expect a normal life.?
On empathy and realism:
?People
deserve to have their feelings validated. Saying ?I am
exhausted and
I
feel like no one cares about me? calls for emotional support and
also
helpful suggestions for tomorrow. No one can work themselves
to
exhaustion
and confusion every single day and always stay chipper and
upbeat and
perky
about their situation!!! Our best hope is to return to
that state in
the
morning.?
On vaccines and autism:
?I get a
tetanus booster every 10 years, and I have NOT noticed that
they or
flu
shots make me ?more autistic.? I notice that I don?t get tetanus
or
flu,
however.?
On the apparent increase in numbers of
autistics:
?The increase is in educational services. It has no relationship
to the
quantity of autistics ?left over? from before the educational law
went
into
effect.
?Before that date we were simply not educated
because we were
considered
?not worth the trouble and
expense.?
?Odd how clearly I remember those years, ducking the teachers
who
sensed my
discrepancies and tried to get me out of the educational
system. Odd
how so
few of us managed to get enough education and
orientation to society
without
the law behind that no one but me is here
to tell the truth.
?HERE I AM!!!!!?
On ?beliefs? about
autism:
?I believe that as soon as belief becomes a factor in the
diagnosis,
care
of, relation to, etc., of a condition or disease, reason
goes out the
window
and we are all the primordial proto-people hiding in
a cave from the
darkness.
On diagnosis in adulthood:
?It?s hugely
useful. If nothing else, it justifies their lifelong
struggle
to measure
up to what everyone demanded/expected of them and they
didn?t/
couldn?t/
wouldn?t produce. It?s such a relief to know you are not a
bad
person
for being yourself.?
On growing older:
?When a woman reaches a
certain age, even if she is autistic, it
becomes red
hat and purple
dress time and one forgets to mind every last one of
one?s P?
s and Q?s
and be totally polite and vapid and ineffectual. I shall be
Eccentric and
noisy.?
On the world as it is today:
?What is going on is that
modern life is too stressful?
?It isn?t your kids that are the problem.
It?s the way we require
people to
be islands of strength and don?t
support them as either children or
adults.
?It?s having to be
perfect as an employee (able to be the CEO of your
company even if you only
want to do a clerk?s job).
?We need a drastic overhaul of our
civilization?s outlook and
priorities.?
?The essence of total denial
operating in society (is) to prevent
taking
care of business as it needs
taking care of.?
On interventions and maturation
(This was Patty?s
last substantial post to the St. Johns list.)
?What people don?t ?get?
about autism, and that allows ?curebies? to
profit
immensely from the
panic of parents, is that WE DEVELOP.
?We don?t keep regressing. We
start working around our deficits and
making
progress in our own unique
ways.
?It?s ?normal? for a diagnosed autistic child to begin to
progress
whether
or not he/she receives costly
interventions.
?Apparently some kids with autism are not able to
connect this way and
progress on their own. ome need more help. And from
what I read, there
are
some or many who do not seem to progress at all,
or else the difficulty
is
so great/ frustration/overload is so
appalling, that they just get all
defensive and cannot deal with the
training.
?However, most autistics progress with reasonable teaching
efforts, and
most
speak by the time they are nine years old. Most are
not retarded?merely
unable to deal with IQ tests the same way that
neurotypical children
are
able to deal with them.
?It?s possible
to push an autistic too hard and induce a regression
through
panic,
overload or whatever is stressing the child/adult with autism.
However, it
is NORMAL for us to gain skills and abilities as we age.
?By the way, I
was diagnosed autistic in 1950. I am still autistic.
Nothing
changed in
the interventing 50-plus years except that I have learned to
work
better
with my disabilities.
?Final word: ideally, a diagnosis is a
neurological assessment, not
just a
compendium of ?behaviors.? In that
case, it will serve you well in
mapping
?where to go from here.? If it?s
only behaviorally-based, it?s not much
help
and means
little.?
Thank you,
Patty.
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